Family rules or how Warren Buffet is giving away the world

Incredible pictures by Eric Carr. I love the green of the marsh and the beautiful lights from the sun. Just incredible. Flickr is a beautiful tool for all photographers, giving them the possibility to get publicity that you simply couldn’t before. I could spend days in the flickrverse. In this post, I cover some Big Brother, Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, money and more!

A 40 billion merger between Inco, Falconbridge and Phelps Dodge was announced yesterday. It will create one of the biggest mining conglomerates in the world. This is the last chapter in the famous Falconbridge saga. Xstrata is out in the cold. Let’s see what the underwriters for the merger propose and how this will affect the mining situation after the stock correction that happened during the month of May and June.

In Quebec, moving day is coming up. For those of you that don’t know this, most leases end on June 30th and start on July 1st. This means that everybody who moves from one place to another moves on this weekend. It’s crazy, from what I’ve heard, it’s another way that Quebec is distinct. Trucks have been booked months in advance and with the heat, it won’t be pleasant at all. On better news, I am not moving. On top of that, there is construction all around Montreal. This is right before the construction holidays. Years ago, the government instituted mandatory construction worker holidays so that one company wouldn’t steal another one’s customers if they had some workers off on holiday.

Unpimp your ride.

In other financial news, Warren Buffet has donated 37.4 billion to the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation. An example of rich people giving money to some other rich people to try to be bigger than the UN for charities. Give me 0.1% of that and I’ll be happy. Meanwhile, Warren Buffet’s granddaughter is wiping some kids ass. She is a nanny for some rich people. Funny how ironic that is; Buffet worked all his life to better himself and let’s his descendants start at the bottom all over again without any real hope of touching his legacy at any point in time. It’s not that making your own way is bad. A lot of us don’t have the luxury of a trust fund, but I believe that at some point, if your family has billions, some of it should go the way of the kids and grand kids. Some sort of financial maneuvering could be set up to save taxes and help out generations of Buffets to come.

New Spiderman trailer with Venom

The guy is a billionaire and decides to give all of his money away. Well, most of it anyway. That is not big of him, that’s just narcissistic. Who else would try to make himself known as the world’s biggest philanthropist whilst his grandchild is wiping crap of some rich kids ass? Yes she did get her school paid by a trust, but that was it, or so she said. It’s not that I am against making your way by yourself, but there has got to be some limits.

The winekone graduates.

The American dream is to make money the way he did but to ensure some form of legacy for his family as well. I think it’s somewhat selfish of him to just give it all away. Instead of giving it to charity, he could have started a fund for artists, making sure to give them grants so that they can create in peace without having to think constantly about money. I calculated that he could help out 75,000 families to live for twenty years while supplying for their basic needs. There was a way to do this, instead of trusting someone like Bill Gates and his wife to give it away for him. Heck, I’d put a billion towards lobbying for net neutrality.

It doesn’t mean anything that he didn’t start a foundation with his own name. He is a financial genius but doesn’t know how to give money away? Give some of it over here and I’ll build some schools and hospitals in Africa. I’ll find great ways to make a lot of people’s lives happier and better. Not just my own sense of immortality. This is why most estate planning should be done when people are younger. When you become older, you worry about different things, like how you made your mark on the world and how people will remember you. I find affecting people’s lives is way more important than your own sense of grandeur.

In Big Brother UK, Susie and Aisleyne were nominated by their fellow housemates for eviction. Or so they thought. The evictee will actually go into the secret house with the new housemates. Ding, dong, the bitch is dead. Well, not really, but I wanted to write that. Aisleyne and Lea are really going at it. They started to despise each other, probably because of Pete. Grace looked down upon Nikki for posing for some nudie pics, then four days after she got out of the house, she posed for Nuts. That is quite sarcastic. I guess she couldn’t say no to some green.

I’m starting to like Mikey more. He is somewhat of a calming force in the house. Richard was supposed to be that, but he just became a superbitch. Mikey is a peacemaker, even is he claimed to be a misogynist in his original VT.

In Big Brother Australia, Perry is becoming the most annoying housemate, even more than Camilla. She is starting arguments without any cause, hounding the housemates for no apparent reason. As soon as she is available for nomination, she will be gone.

I’ve really gotten into my science-fiction writing. I’ve done a lot of research, found some interesting sources and gotten a pile of “to read” books on my desk. I wouldn’t mind being a full time writer, while still taking care of my existing financial customers. There is a lot of freedom with that sort of lifestyle. Traveling the world with your laptop and ideas in your head. I think all this drive is generally because I’ve always been interested in science-fiction, especially themes of transhumanism, extropianism, transenlightment, posthumanism, technological singularities and futurism.

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18 Responses to “Family rules or how Warren Buffet is giving away the world”

Ummm… range… aren’t you forgetting that after endowing the Gates Foundation with US$30.7 billion Buffett has approximately US$11 billion to leave to future generations of Buffetts. This is a man who has stated that “I want to give my kids enough so that they could feel they could do anything but not so much they could do nothing”.

The impression I get is that he doesn’t want to create descendants who feel that they are entitled to everything just because they have money; that he wants them to know the value of money and what it is to have to work for it. A few years wiping some kid’s arse is not going to make that particular grandchild a worse person – she might end up having a more informed, more compassionate view of the world. My opinion is that we have enough Paris Hiltons in the world without encouraging the creation of more.

At the end of the day, it’s his money to distribute as he sees fit. If he believes that his money will be better directed to an already existing foundation that directs money to health programmes in the US and the rest of the world; to education and libraries; and to community development who are we to argue?

🙂
It was more of a rant than anything else. I actually agree with you. I was kind of playing devils advocate. Of course, 11 billion is quite enough for a lot of generations of Buffets, all I wanted to say is that when some people get older, they get the desire to leave a mark. And this move kind of smells like this. However, Buffet has said that he would do this for some time. I just wish that he had done something real and tangible instead of making Bill Gates and his foundation responsible. BTW, I hate Bill Gates and Microsoft. Like most programmers, we hate him a lot.

Sure, I am not defending trust fund kids, heck I wouldn’t mind being one, but as you must have gathered that is not the case. Paris Hilton and the like are very bad examples and from my research, I think that those amounts of money just mess up the kids more than anything else. Giving to charity is a great move.

hhhmm so many different think i forgot what i wanted to say, but i the charity thing sucks worst, he should game me 1/4 th of it & i’d make here really hot so to call 48 f summer!
aha what’s this copyright thing?! i gotta steal something from yer page, i’ll do it sooner or later, wait for it!

I think it’s only kind of smells like wanting to make a mark. If he’d really wanted to make a mark he would have set up a foundation in his own name, with all the administrative and legal hoo-ha that would have involved.

For what it’s worth, I’m not a huge fan of Bill Gates and Microsoft but I think I’d rather he directed his money into charitable works than into his own pockets. Basically, someone had to do it – why not Bill Gates. He has a high profile and the attendant publicity; he can push the message, as it were. I’m in no way an expert, or even knowledgeable about the US legal system, but wouldn’t there be a hell of a lot of safeguards and protections in place around a charitable organisation?

The grandchild is not so surprising given his stated views (and having worked as a nanny many, many years ago, I can think of no better job for a trust fund kid – daily servings of hard work, real life and real love).

Bill Gates… Well.
I don’t really hate him that much, but I do despise M$.

There are a lot of safeguards for charities.

I wonder what would happen if some of us where in Warren Buffet’s place? I think something concentrated like setting up the biggest AIDS research fund or distributing the money in Africa. Probably the best would be to micro manage each case, that way you would make the most impact of a lenght of time and conserve the capital as long as possible so that many people could benefit from it for a very long time.

For the short science-fiction story? euh. I think you better start reading right away. I have a feeling, it’s not confirmed, that there could be a novel or novella there. I’m not lacking any inspiration and I’ve writen 36000 words until now.

I have an end in sight, but I might dwelve into backround plots before ending it.

UN for charities my arse! UN for weapons as well when you know that the biggest weapons seller in the world are also the five permanent members of the UN. Which is US, UK, FRANCE and CHINA. Never trust the UN, they are rotten like any perfectly SANE good ol’ governement. At some point I am starting to prefer seeing private companies and/or their rich bosses taking care of the poverty in the world.

“BTW, I hate Bill Gates and Microsoft. Like most programmers, we hate him a lot.”

Oh come one Range, I’m a programmer too, and I like Microsoft and Gates.😉 Most of their haters are in Open Sources circles, or simply fans of competitor’s products. Which, in the end, is a small minority in the tech industry.

That doesn’t mean I agree with every moves Microsoft does. Heck no, some of their actions are clearly vicious toward competitors. But in the end, with a large overview, Microsoft is a good company offering some great products (and yes, like others, some crappy ones).

Right now, the G&BF is the top charity organization of the planet, in terms of shear money and means. Countless african lives has been saved by his vaccin program. I think it’s wrong to judge Gates’s foundation solely on his busniess career. It would be like judging a boxer’s personnality and values only on how hard he punch his adversary in the ring.

Yeah I know😉 I admit that without the M$ hatred on many geek/tech forums, they would be quite dull 😉 A good arguing between Linux and M$ advocates can replace the morning cup of coffee any day of the week!

You people are really out of touch! No one ever made anything of themselves with free money. Look at all the sweepstakes winners or lottery winners. Did they improve society? Did they even improve themselves?

That Warren decided to join an already strong and influential foundation that does really affect change in all parts of the world, is a strong indicator of how wise he really is.

Stop reading the conglomerate controlled newspapers and magazines you read and get out in the real world. You are imbedded in the biggest propaganda machine the world has ever seen. The US media. CNN, NBC, etc. are feeding your feeble minds with the crap to further manipulate you.

Get out of your worker mentality and think about you could lessen your impact on our fragile planet! And have a good gloat as you climb into your SUV or Jacked-up pickup.

You will remain a looser until you look beyond what is readily available information flow.